


a rope in hand

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Boarding School, Drug Use, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Reunions, Unresolved Romantic Tension, rich boys with daddy issues: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: It’s three in the morning and he’s hauling his drunk and injured childhood best friend up to his apartment after having to break up a fight at a nightclub but you wouldn’t know it from looking at him. Unperturbed, sharply beautiful, Minghao has always breezed through life like that—focus razor-sharp, everything always so tightly under control.--They were kids in love, once. Ten years and an ocean later, Minghao and Mingyu meet again.





	a rope in hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knightspur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightspur/gifts).

> written for _from eden_. i was going to quote a specific line but it really is the wholeass song. 
> 
> really cannot thank the jukebox mods enough for putting up with me. you are my favorite and i would go to war for all of you 
> 
> [insert sweet dedication that isn’t just SEE YOU IN HELL KNIGHTSPUR HAHAHA!]
> 
> i didn’t know how to tag it, but if you have emetophobia there is a very quick description of someone vomiting in the first paragraph and also at the end of the fic, although by then you’ll see it coming.

What would you like? I’d like my money’s worth.

Try explaining a life bundled with episodes of this—

swallowing mud, swallowing glass, the smell of blood

on the first four knuckles.

We pull our boots on with both hands

but we can’t punch ourselves awake and all I can do

is stand on the curb and say _ Sorry _

_ about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. _

— R. SIKEN

  
  


Mingyu bends over and empties the contents of his stomach on the sidewalk, holding on to a street lamp in fear of keeling over, vomit splattering on the tip of his shiny shoes. A hesitant hand touches his trembling shoulder and then retreats, the motion instantaneous. It is always like that, Mingyu has found. People want to be very tender with him, and then they rethink it. 

He redresses himself, wipes his mouth off with his sleeve. 

“Jesus,” Minghao says. 

He’s standing at a respectable distance now, twisting his fingers like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Mingyu looks at him. He’s always been very easy and also very hard to look at. 

“Jesus,” Minghao says again. “I’m calling a cab. Are you done puking?”

“Yeah,” Mingyu rasps. He’s not sure. There have to be a couple Benjamins in his wallet. That should cover it, he thinks, if he turns out to be wrong. 

In the back of the car it’s Minghao’s turn to watch him, expression unreadable. Mingyu’s whole face is throbbing. There is blood drying under his nose, and some of it went inside his mouth. The metallic taste is making him nauseous again. The driver almost said something when they went in, but Minghao is smart, called a black car instead of a standard yellow cab. 

“Do you have your keys?” he asked Mingyu before getting in, then shook his head before Mingyu could answer. “Never mind, forget it.” 

He leaned in to the passenger side window and gave the driver an address in Manhattan. Mingyu is trying to make sense of the scenery now through the tinted glass to figure out where they’re going, but his head hurts too much to really produce any sort of complex thought. 

Minghao steers him outside with one arm looped under Mingyu’s armpit when they get to their destination, and doesn’t let him go. It’s a tall brownstone building with a nice door, a carpet on the stairs leading to the porch. Someone opens the door for them when they get there. 

There’s a security desk, too. The guy on the night shift rises immediately when he sees them. “Good evening, Mr. Xu.” 

That’s not how you pronounce Minghao’s last name, Mingyu thinks absently. 

“Oh,” he realizes dumbly a second later, “You live here.”

Minghao sighs, calls the elevator. “Yes.” 

There is a ding. The doors slide open. Mingyu lets himself get dragged inside, makes eye contact with his reflection in the large, spotless mirror. 

He looks atrocious, blood smeared over his mouth and chin, bags under his eyes, a bruise blossoming over his nose like a plaster. His nice white shirt has blood on it too, pinkish red on the collar.

Minghao, in contrast, looks pristine. Dark red silk shirt tucked in black pants, hair stylishly falling above his eyes, he’s just as put together as Mingyu remembers him always being when they were in high school together, when other boys were busy being teenagers, smelly and stupid and loud. It’s three in the morning and he’s hauling his drunk and injured childhood best friend up to his apartment after having to break up a fight at a nightclub but you wouldn’t know it from looking at him. Unperturbed, sharply beautiful, Minghao has always breezed through life like that—focus razor-sharp, everything always so tightly under control. 

Minghao’s New York apartment is exactly as Mingyu would have imagined it: decorated sparsely but with taste, modern art on the walls, minimalist furniture and epurated lines, rich earthy tones. There’s even exposed wood beams in the living room, straight out of an Ikea catalog. Minghao makes him take off his shoes in the corridor, as if living in the United States could ever rob Mingyu of that habit. 

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” he tugs on Mingyu’s sleeve when Mingyu just stands there admiring his interior design. “Come on, we need to get you cleaned up.” 

Minghao sets a bag of cotton balls and a plastic bottle of 91% alcohol on the edge of the sink. 

“Sit,” he points to the tub. “Don’t move.” 

He cleans the blood with water first, very gently, on a tissue. When it’s all off he dabs the area with a second, dry tissue. Mingyu hisses. 

“I said don’t move,” Minghao chastises him. “This is going to sting, you split your lip open.”

That’s all the warning Mingyu gets before Minghao liberally soaks a cotton pad in isopropyl alcohol and presses it to the corner of his mouth, then right above. He holds Mingyu by the back of his head this time, hand in his hair, and Mingyu is thankful for his strong grip because he would have fallen into the bathtub backwards otherwise, reflexively trying to get away from the burn. 

Minghao dumps the used cotton in the trash can behind him, hooks two fingers under Mingyu’s chin to inspect his face. 

“I think it’s broken,” he says flatly, but his eyes are worried. 

“D’you finish Med School like your dad wanted?” Mingyu asks, words slurred from the pain that’s reverberating inside his cranium. 

“I’m a photographer,” Minghao says. He traces a finger along the bridge of Mingyu’s nose. “But I don’t need a degree to tell you fucked up your nose real good.” 

“You always liked art,” Mingyu says. “Imagery.”

Minghao’s hand stills for a fraction of a second, almost imperceptible. 

“I take pictures of celebrities for magazine covers,” he says after a beat. “It’s not exactly high art.” 

There is no bitterness in his tone. He’s just stating a fact. Mingyu’s stomach twists, anxiety he cannot quite comprehend swirling inside him.

“I don’t think we need to take you to the ER tonight,” Minghao says, pensive, taking a step back. “You definitely should call your doctor tomorrow, though.” 

Mingyu thinks about how the only doctor he has in his contacts is his psychiatrist, but he doesn’t say anything. Minghao looks like he’s developed into the kind of guy who has every type of medical specialist on speed dial. Mingyu has a lawyer on retainer, and when he double-taps Siri calls his drug dealer. 

“And now?” he asks. He feels directionless, sitting on the edge of a bathtub with a headache and the beginning of a hangover in front of a boy he used to be in love with when he didn’t know what love was. 

Minghao’s face does that thing where he looks like Mingyu is so stupid it’s causing him pain. “Now we go to the kitchen, I make us tea, and then you can take my couch.”

“I’m really tall,” Mingyu says dumbly, as if Minghao doesn’t know.

“It’s a pull-out,” Minghao rolls his eyes. “You’ll fit.” 

Elbows on Minghao’s granite kitchen island, Mingyu watches him while he puts water to boil and sets two beautiful porcelain cups on the counter.

“I just microwave it,” Mingyu says. “The water. When I make tea.”

“Your mother would be appalled,” Minghao scrunches up his nose in distaste. “This is why my parents didn’t want to send me to school in America, Western values really fucked with your brain.” 

He pours the water in a teapot first, carefully counts two spoons of loose leaf tea. It smells good. It smells like home. When he serves the tea Mingyu looks away. 

“I don’t really drink tea anyway,” he defends himself, eyes trailing over Minghao’s cupboards. There are a few pictures pinned to the fridge with magnets, and what looks like a shopping list. “Only when I’m sick.”

“No,” Minghao muses. “You were always more the coffee type, weren’t you.”

He’s right, but it’s not even that Mingyu really likes coffee that much, although he definitely did Pavlov himself into developing a taste over the years. It used to be about staying up late to finish essays, once upon a time. Now it’s more that he needs to be functional during the day on _ some _level and coke can only get you so far. 

“Sorry about your boyfriend,” he tells Minghao when the silence becomes unbearable. 

Minghao takes a sip before staring Mingyu dead in the eye over the rim of his cup. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He sure seemed to think he was,” Mingyu scoffs, “Considering he, you know, tried to pulverize my face.” 

“I think you insulted his mother at some point before he did that,” Minghao chuckles lightly, the kind of laugh that’s involuntary. “That was very stupid, by the way,” he adds more soberly. 

“It’s not as if it’s the first time,” Mingyu mutters. He downs the rest of his tea. Liquid warmth spreads through his chest. 

“Yeah, that makes it even dumber,” Minghao frowns. “You keep getting into fights for me. I hope you don’t expect me to return the favor.”

Mingyu bites his lip. He thinks Minghao already did, too many times to count. Not all fights are a matter of fists. 

The thing is, when they were fifteen it was easier to not put words on the strange yearning Mingyu felt down to his bones, like an illness in the marrow. It was easier then to be _ boys, _crooked ties and bad skin and undying loyalty. It was easier, above all, to believe that friendship lasts forever. 

“I’m gonna find you a toothbrush,” Minghao says. Mingyu gets off his stool too fast, and the world tanks. He grabs Minghao by the arm. 

“Minghao,” he croaks. His surroundings are slightly blurry. He tightens his hold on Minghao’s bicep to stay upright. 

“Jesus,” Minghao grits out for the umpteenth time this evening. “Change of plans, you’re not sleeping on the couch.” 

In the bathroom again, Minghao tears the plastic wrapper of a new toothbrush, puts toothpaste on it and sticks it in Mingyu’s hand. 

“You’ll hate yourself in the morning if you don’t. Come on, just to get the taste of puke out for good.” 

He washes his face while Mingyu half-assedly brushes his teeth. There are two basins; it’s a spacious bathroom, built for a couple. The idea makes something hitch in Mingyu’s chest. 

Minghao’s bed is big. That, too, was built for two, but it’s clear Minghao sleeps alone: there is only one nightstand, and the pillows and the cover are all piled up on one side. 

He rearranges everything, gets a second comforter from his closet, and points to the left. 

“You sleep there. If you kick me in your sleep I will kick back, I don’t care that you’re injured.”

They’ve shared a bed before. Mingyu stares at the ceiling, unable to quiet the chaos in his mind, listens to Minghao’s breathing. It’s even but still too fast—he’s not asleep either. 

In boarding school they slept in the same bed during thunderstorms, Minghao leaving the isolation of his top bunk to slide under Mingyu’s covers and mold himself to Mingyu’s body. He was magnanimous, Mingyu remembers, pretending to be the one who needed reassurance because Mingyu’s ego couldn’t take it. 

There were other occasions. Lee Seokmin had smuggled in a large bottle of soju after Winter break their junior year, and he had been willing to share with them and a few other boys, and one of them had brought in something from his own hidden stash. It had been Mingyu’s first time getting _ drunk _ for real. Nothing remotely close to being allowed a flute of Champagne at home and getting slightly tipsy—this had been _ smashed, _ forget how to speak kind of drunk. Minghao was intoxicated too but they discovered that night that he could hold his liquor much better. He had put Mingyu to bed and then climbed in after him, unwilling to leave him alone in that state. _ You take care of me, _ Mingyu had mumbled. _ You always take care of me. _He wishes he could remember if Minghao had replied. 

It feels different here, now. There are years between them, stretched like thin rope, the distance unbreachable. Mingyu graduated and fucked off to Columbia University. Minghao went back to China to study medicine. Clearly that did not pan out, but Mingyu doesn’t know what happened, and truth be told he gave up on _ knowing _so long ago that suddenly being by Minghao’s side and technically able to ask the question is giving him vertigo. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Minghao breaks the silence. “Go to sleep.”

“Sorry,” Mingyu answers reflexively. 

They’re not friends anymore. Almost a decade and no news, that is not friendship. They _ were _ friends, Mingyu is almost sure. Best friends, _ bestest _friends, although retrospectively boyhood made that simple, organic. It was a time of bonds so easily deep, when everything felt life or death. He’s had time to think about it, as much as he’d like to say he did not spend years and years wondering why neither of them tried to reach across the ocean, rekindle the flame. It wouldn’t have been hard, for Mingyu at least. It had never been quite reduced to ashes; always simmering, bluish, never extinguished. 

He figured it out somewhere between his first time sucking dick and his first rail of cocaine. Fucking men was like taking drugs. A bad habit, but an easily concealed one, in the sense that everyone knew but everyone pretended not to. Respectable façades, Mingyu’s father used to say. _ Doesn’t matter who you are behind closed doors as long as there is plausible deniability. _It was a direct message, obviously. Do what you want. Don’t let it get back to the company. 

There would have been no plausible deniability in being in love with Minghao. 

Everyone in his milieu is high as shit all the time and embezzling funds and fucking escorts, but there is a line, and the line is different for everyone. For Mingyu, instinctively, not crossing the line had meant never speaking to Minghao again once he had finally put words on the ceaseless pit of emotions Minghao’s presence evoked in him. Tacitly, he had accepted that it had probably been the same for him. 

It’s harder to accept, it turns out, in Minghao’s bed. It was harder to accept already hours ago, in that nightclub, when he saw him standing there and thought he was hallucinating. Mingyu had been doing blow in the restrooms half an hour before that and still felt like he was king of the world, which probably explained why he had tried to duel the guy Minghao was with in Minghao’s honor. He doesn’t remember much detail, except for his vision narrowing to just Minghao in his silk button-up, collarbones bared, bright and impossible under the neon lights. It was different to want now, with an understanding of that desire. 

It was different to want now with the intimate knowledge of how men touch each other. 

In school Minghao used to roll his sleeves, wear his shirts untucked. He never looked disheveled, somehow, just effortlessly cool. Mingyu, with his tie like a hand around his throat, was extremely envious. 

Minghao smoked cigarettes behind the schoolyard with the only other Chinese student in their school, came back reeking of tobacco no matter how much perfume Wen Junhui spritzed all over the both of them to hide the smell. Mingyu hated it, hated the acrid scent and those fifteen minute breaks Minghao shared with someone else like confidences. He hated Junhui too with the sort of rage only teenagers have, senseless, too big for the circumstances. Minghao never really noticed, because Mingyu was quiet in his anger. Junhui definitely noticed and seemed to think it was very amusing. Mingyu came across his Facebook profile once recently. He has a husband, the Chinese-American CEO of some tech company Mingyu doesn’t remember the name of. They live in California and own two cats. Mingyu still hates him, albeit for vastly different reasons. 

“I can’t fall asleep,” he whispers, but on his right Minghao has rolled to his side, curled up on himself, snoring lightly. 

:::

It goes something like this: Minghao leaves Seoul for Beijing with nothing but a backpack and a heavy heart. All his stuff is being shipped back home in containers, and it leaves him with empty hands at the airport, and too much time. 

Mingyu insisted on coming to see him off, never mind that the drive to Incheon is horrendous and he’s going to get lonely on the ride back, alone. He bought Minghao bubble tea before security, joked about buying a ticket just to walk Minghao to his gate. Or at least Minghao thought it was a joke. He wouldn’t mind, really, if Mingyu went through the metal detector with him, held his hand through customs. He’s feeling awfully off kilter. 

“They’re calling your flight number,” Mingyu says. His words sound wet, weighted down. 

“I’m flying first class, they’ll wait,” Minghao says. He thinks about how Korean tastes in his mouth, round letters, quick words. When he was first sent here he hated it. 

“I’ll write,” Mingyu promises. “And you can come over during the Summer, right?”

“Right,” Minghao repeats, voice the slightest bit hoarse. He refuses to cry in public. He never has, and he never will. 

Mingyu hugs him with all his might, engulfs him in his arms, one hand in Minghao’s hair. 

“You’ll write to me too,” he mumbles into the crook of Minghao’s neck. “Nine months isn’t even that long.” 

A glass of bubbly in his hand, cheek pressed to the cold window and watching the tarmac, Minghao thinks about nine months in terms of time, and then he thinks in terms of space, about Beijing and New York City. He thinks about Mingyu’s business degree, the thick envelope with his acceptance letter and Columbia’s seal on it. He applied to all the Ivies and got into three, and also into Yonsei and Seoul National, but his father had insisted on him going overseas. 

Minghao didn’t even bother taking the Korean university entrance exam. He’s known he would go back to China since he left Anshan. The plan has always been this, become a surgeon just like his father. His mother’s fortune is there to serve as a cushion, but there is honor only in hard work, and Minghao has to make something of himself. God knows he was given enough advance in life. 

He’s good at science, although he doesn’t really like any of the STEM subjects. He didn’t like most subjects in school, if he’s being quite honest, and yet he graduated with impeccable grades, so he’s not worried about Medical School. If there is one thing he is it’s persistent, iron willed.

But Mingyu writes once and then never again. One email, long and over detailed, riddled with exclamation points. He loves New York, he tells Minghao. Traffic is crazy and he’s lonely, the time difference makes it hard to phone home, but the city is amazing. Everything goes so fast, he wishes Minghao was there. How’s Beijing? How’s school? Mingyu’s classes are boring but easy, Americans are only supposed to take intro classes the first year. He misses his sister. He misses Minghao. They should try coordinating for a video call soon. 

Minghao replies. His email is shorter, and much more to the point. He’s buried under work. He hasn’t really made any friends, but he wasn’t really trying either. Junhui goes to university here too, got into a really good acting school, and he takes Minghao out for dinner sometimes. It has rained a lot already. He misses Mingyu. 

He almost signs with _ Love, Minghao, _ but then he rereads Mingyu’s message, eyes falling on the simple _ -M _in the end, and backspaces hurriedly. 

No answer ever comes. Minghao checks his inbox daily. He knows nothing has happened to Mingyu, because he asked his sister, and she assured him everything was fine. He has his number, technically, and he should call. He should. 

But Mingyu’s radio silence coincides with midterms, and Minghao pushes everything aside for a month just to survive that. And then Junhui takes him out for drinks to celebrate and drunkenly jerks Minghao off in a bar restroom at the end of the night, and Minghao suddenly finds himself with so many problems on his hands it becomes very complicated to think about Mingyu. 

That’s a lie. He thinks about Mingyu all the time. He thinks about Mingyu when he crosses the street, when he buys groceries, in his Anatomy II lesson, when he’s fucking Junhui. He thinks about Mingyu on the phone with Seokmin, when he asks _ hey, do you have any news, from—from the others? _He thinks about Mingyu so much it becomes a background noise, an ache he learns to live with. He misses Mingyu like he misses Seoul, with the fondness reserved for places one can never really return to. He knows how to read between the lines. Mingyu knows where to find him. If he hasn’t, it’s because he has his reasons. 

He writes one email, extremely inebriated on the day he learns he’s passed his first year. _ What did I do? What did you do? Please just call. _He realizes in the morning he mistyped Mingyu’s address. He doesn’t send it. 

Mingyu gets engaged to a woman the same year Minghao fails out of Med School. Everyone in their old circle gossips about it—Mingyu’s engagement, not Minghao’s nervous breakdown and subsequent academic suicide, no one knows about that one except for his family and Junhui. Junhui has already left for the States by then. When Minghao books a one-way flight to Los Angeles he tries to convince himself he’s not thinking about anyone but himself. 

He hangs around Hollywood, makes some contacts, burns through half his trust fund in sunny California. Junhui’s boyfriend hires him to shoot an ad. It’s a pity job, but it gives Minghao the impression he’s doing something, which is good. Junhui’s boyfriend also wants to hire him to take pictures at their wedding, which Minghao respectfully declines, because he has limits, and those limits apparently begin at pointing his camera at the man who took his virginity as he gets married to someone else. 

He doesn’t think he’s in love with Junhui, not anymore, but at the reception he still drinks like a scorned lover. He fucks Yanan’s best man, half retaliation and half genuine hunger for human connection. A month later he packs his shit and moves to New York. 

Manhattan is nice. He likes the tempo, hates the weather. He has enough money and charm to talk his way into a job at Vogue. He rents an apartment in one of the poshest sides of town and always carries business cards in his breast pocket. He sleeps with models and B-list celebrities, drinks only the finest whiskey, and calls himself an artist. It’s all awfully pretentious and very disappointing. His mother tells him she’s happy as long as he’s happy. His father is kind about it, but Minghao can see the question in his eyes every time they Skype, _ Why couldn’t you just stay in Medical School, _so after a while he cuts back on the video calls. 

It’s broken, but it’s his life, entirely his. Jagged edges, mismatched puzzle pieces, but none of it was decided by someone else. He likes it, paradoxically, even if he wakes up lost sometimes, wondering where exactly he went wrong, how he could have gone so astray. He likes it because it makes sense in the way some mistakes do; meant to be, inevitable. He likes it because it is predictable and easy, because he has everything under control, no risk of a broken heart. 

Then on the night of his twenty-eighth birthday, Kim Mingyu waltzes back into his life, bloody nose and all. 

:::

When Mingyu wakes up Minghao’s side of the bed is empty. Mingyu feels like he was run over by a truck. 

He gets up, pads to the kitchen in nothing but his boxers because he couldn’t find his clothes from the night before anywhere. Minghao is sitting at the kitchen island, reading glasses on, reading something on an iPad. There is a steaming mug of tea next to him. 

“I made coffee for you,” Minghao says in lieu of good morning, not raising his eyes from his screen. “It’s in the pot.”

“Thanks,” Mingyu says, throat dry. He pours himself a cup, hesitates to sit. “Thank you, for—well. You know.” 

That makes Minghao pause in his reading, set the tablet down. “Oh, it was nothing,” he says, dry. “You crashed my birthday celebration and got in a fight with a guy I actually liked, everything is peachy.”

Mingyu’s face falls. He didn’t realize. He _ remembers, _of course he does, he just didn’t realize the date was—

“Shit,” he swears. “November 7—of course you were—_shit. _Hao, I’m sorry.” 

Minghao closes his eyes furtively. 

“Sit down,” he says. “Drink your coffee. How’s your head?”

“I feel like I was shot,” Mingyu says. “Minghao, I really am sorry. There’s no excuse, but I was—hm—not very sober, and—”

“You were high as a skyscraper,” Minghao interrupts him. “Come on now, I work with models, you think I don’t know what someone looks like coked up?”

For the first time in a long, long while, shame creeps up Mingyu’s spine like a venomous snake. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, looking down this time. 

“Never thought you’d be the one to do hard drugs out of all our class,” Minghao shrugs. “Sit down, I said.” Mingyu obeys. “Always figured it’d be Soonyoung. But maybe he was batshit enough sober.”

Mingyu drinks from his cup. The coffee burns the tip of his tongue. “Everyone does it,” he tries explaining himself. “I work in Wall Street, and it’s just—you can’t keep up if you don’t cheat.” 

“I’m not your mother, Mingyu,” Minghao says sharply. “You can take whatever you like, I don’t care.” 

It hurts with the kind of pain Mingyu thought he was immune to. It hurts like Minghao reached inside his ribcage with his hand and squeezed his heart like a dying bird. 

It must show on his face, because Minghao’s hard expression cracks a little. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, softer. 

Mingyu scoffs. “There’s many meanings to I don’t care?” 

“I haven’t seen you in ten years. Do _ you _care?”

“Didn’t know it had an expiration date, caring,” Mingyu says. Minghao’s eyebrows arch elegantly. 

“That is very rich coming from you.” 

Every word he says has Mingyu’s bones rattling like wind chimes. One half of his face still hurts like a motherfucker. Of all the ways he imagined having this conversation—and of course he imagined it—

“I’m sorry I stopped talking to you,” he hears himself saying more than he consciously pronounces the words. “You didn’t exactly inundate me with letters either, you know.”

Minghao’s gaze goes hard again. “You’re a fucking asshole, Kim Mingyu, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Mingyu accepts it, because it’s true. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I was busy.” 

It’s awful. It’s not what he _ means_—what he means is that his father sat him down and gave him a choice between being himself and being his son. What he means is that he first started doing blow when he was planning the wedding. He walked into the Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue and bought Nayoung a ring and then forgot he had and went in again to buy a second one. What he means is that somewhere between getting his MBA and getting divorced he thinks he was supposed to take a break, learn how to breathe on his own again, but no one ever told him to slow down so he didn’t. 

“Don’t you have a wife to get back to?” Minghao asks, acidic. 

“We’re separated,” Mingyu says numbly. “Doesn’t quite make the rounds like wedding pictures, right? The divorce should be finalized by the end of the year.” 

Something shifts in Minghao’s expression. He doesn’t say anything for a while. 

“You should really get that checked out,” is what be chooses to break the silence with, pointing at Mingyu’s nose. “I—I did do four years of Med School. You don’t want it to heal wrong.”

Mingyu sees him then, the boy from all those years ago, the boy in Mingyu’s bed while the wind hurls outside, while the sky is breaking. 

“Ask me why I’m not married anymore, Minghao,” he says quietly. 

“I know why you’re not married anymore,” Minghao shakes his head. “You were the last one to get it, I think.” 

“Do you understand? Do you understand, then, why I couldn’t write?”

“No,” Minghao says. “Yes,” after a beat. “I know why you didn’t write. There is knowing and forgiving.” 

Bile rises in Mingyu’s stomach. Absently, he thinks it would be hilarious if he vomited twice in front of Minghao in the span of twenty four hours. He grips the handle of his now empty coffee mug so tight his knuckles turn white. 

“I saw you in that club,” he starts. “I saw you under the lights and I thought, man, that was some good shit I just took, he looks almost real.” Minghao’s eyes are sad. Mingyu remembers a time when he had the power to change that. “I see you sometimes, you know? If it’s strong enough and I just close my eyes. You’re my first vision every time.”

“Don’t do this, Mingyu.” 

“I’m just talking to you.” 

Minghao shakes his head. “You know why _ I _didn’t write?” Mingyu keeps quiet so he continues. “Because—this. Jesus, shit like this. I knew who you were back then already, I knew since our fucking junior year of high school, that it was always going to be this. I kissed you once, I don’t think you remember. You were really plastered.” 

Mingyu blinks. He does not remember, no. 

“You say shit like this,” Minghao says, “And it’s been ten fucking years and it still gets to me, somehow.” He cards a hand through his hair, pushes his bangs off his forehead. “So I didn’t write. I didn’t want to give you the chance to convince me. I didn’t write.” 

He’s right—of course he’s right. Mingyu can picture it with terrifying clarity. They’d have met up over the Summer just like they promised. Mingyu would have kissed him in secret. There would have been—calls, hushed whispers, secret rendezvous at the Four Seasons with reservations under fake names. Nayoung would have found them in bed, maybe. If he closes his eyes he can see her, he can hear her scream. She’d break a vase, maybe. He would have been less careful, with Minghao. Three broken hearts, pieces everywhere like shattered glass. 

“You didn’t even call when you moved to the City,” he says, out of everything he could say. 

“Of course I didn’t,” Minghao glares. “We’re high school acquaintances. You don’t hit up every guy you went to high school with just because you live in the same city now.”

It lodges itself between Mingyu’s ribs like a knife. 

“Minghao,” he says. Minghao looks at him, holds his gaze. Mingyu used to look for his smile in everyone he met. He craves it now, aches for it. “Minghao, I can’t just go back to my life and pretend I don’t know you’re here.” 

Minghao stays very still for a long, long minute. Then he buries his face in his hands, sighs very deeply. 

“Ten fucking years,” he mutters. “Godforsaken fucking decade, and it still works.” 

In the ocean of sadness inside Mingyu’s chest there is a sudden jolt of joy, a flicker. 

“I make my own money now,” he says, hoarse. “And I’m—disgraced, tainted anyway, I—”

“Please stop talking,” Minghao says, face still hidden. 

“Let me take you out for brunch. It’s your birthday, shit, let me just do this.”

Minghao raises his head. “My birthday was yesterday, asshole.”

“Morning after still counts,” Mingyu says. “Come on, Minghao. There’s a Taiwanese place that makes rice the way you like.” 

“Your clothes are in the dryer,” Minghao sighs. “I got the blood stains out.”

And Mingyu—Mingyu is giddy with it, takes the implicit yes and cradles it against his chest like a wounded baby animal, sprints to the bathroom to retrieve his stuff and get dressed. When he’s ready Minghao is waiting in the living room in stonewashed jeans and Doctor Martens boots and a green tee-shirt that’s too large for him. Mingyu bites the inside of his mouth until he can taste blood. 

“You’re going to buy me bottomless Mimosas,” Minghao tells him, “And you’re going to drink nothing but water.” Mingyu nods. “Don’t use the puppy eyes on me, fucker,” Minghao glares, “I’ve known you since before your ridiculous growth spurt, nothing you do impresses me.” 

:::

Minghao watches, helpless, as Kim Mingyu takes a swing at—Ben? Bart? Minghao could have sworn his name was Ben—and misses. It feels surreally like a dream, or maybe it is déjà-vu—in high school someone called Minghao a fag once, and Mingyu punched the guy in the face. He had the advantage of height and strength but didn’t know how to throw a punch to save his life and ended up with a week of detention and split knuckles for his troubles. 

Probably-Ben stares at Mingyu with wide eyes for a second, then strikes back. _ He _lands his hit square in Mingyu’s face, and there is a sickening crack. Minghao watches it happen in slow motion, already moving to put himself between them when Mingyu stumbles back, pinching his bloody nose and swearing like a sailor in Korean Minghao should be too rusty to understand. 

“Get the fuck away from him,” he hisses, elbowing Definitely-Not-Bart in the chest. “Fucking hell,” he turns to Mingyu. “Let me see. Stop moving, let me see.” 

Mingyu’s face is a disaster. There is blood everywhere and his nose is already swelling. From the corner of his eye, Minghao spots two security guards making their way up to the VIP corner. 

“We’re leaving,” he turns to face them. The last thing Mingyu needs right now is to be literally thrown outside. “We’re leaving, don’t touch him, I got this.” 

Mingyu leans on his shoulder to walk out, but the second fresh air hits his face he runs to the nearest lamppost and pukes his guts out all over the ground. 

“Jesus,” Minghao hisses. Mingyu turns to look at him. The neon sign above the club’s entrance shines directly onto his face, and bathed in pink light like that, blood trickling down his chin and onto his white shirt, he looks so stupidly beautiful Minghao’s hands itch for his camera. 

_ God, _ he thinks, angry but also resigned, _ here we go again. _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading ❤️ kudos and comments keep the author happy! tell me what you liked!


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